Invitation to tender15 June 2026
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Introduction
The Centre for Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO) is seeking to work with higher education providers who have a contextual admissions policy and wish to evaluate it. This forms part of our work with TASO’s UKRI policy fellow, Professor Anna Zimdars, to better understand what works best in the implementation of contextualised admissions.
We will work with selected providers to develop theories of change, identify suitable outcome measures and scope what data needs to be collected to robustly understand their contextualised admissions policy.
Funding will be available to cover staff time to participate in workshops to develop the theory of change.
Introduction to TASO
TASO aims to improve lives through evidence-based practice in higher education. Our vision is to eliminate equality gaps for disadvantaged and underrepresented groups, allowing all students to have the same chance to enter HE, get a good degree and progress into further study or employment.
TASO is an affiliate ‘What Works Centre’ and is part of the UK government’s What Works Network. This means that TASO is committed to the generation, synthesis and dissemination of high-quality evidence about effective practice in widening participation and student success. Our role is to help the sector produce more robust evidence to provide the best possible understanding of which activities and approaches are most effective.
Project background
TASO’s UKRI fellowship aims to explore how contextual admissions are used to widen access to higher education for disadvantaged students, how their success is measured, and also to look at the public and policy debate on the topic.
Contextual admissions help people from all sorts of different backgrounds to progress to higher education. Students can face additional challenges during their education which may have an impact on their entry qualifications. Higher education providers recognise these challenges, and can make adjustments through ‘contextual admissions’ – for example lowering the grade requirement, offering a foundation year, or providing an unconditional offer
While contextualised admissions are widely recognised as a tool for widening access to disadvantaged students, the sector currently faces a limited evidence base regarding their long-term effectiveness.To begin strengthening the evidence base, this strand of the policy fellowship is designed to develop comprehensive theories of change of contextualised admissions in different provider contexts. The project will also lay the groundwork for future evaluations by identifying suitable outcome measures and what data needs to be collected in order to facilitate robust evaluation of contextual admissions policies.
Project scope
TASO will select up to six providers and lead on the development of a theory of change for their contextual admissions policy. A theory of change is a framework that maps the parts of an intervention, in this case a contextual admissions policy, the intended outcomes and impacts of the intervention, and how the intervention is expected to bring about change.
TASO staff will lead a one-day in-person workshop with each selected provider to develop a theory change. This workshop will focus on mapping the causal pathways from contextualised admissions policy to impact, the assumptions behind them and what might mediate or moderate their effectiveness. A half-day online follow-up workshop will be conducted to further refine the theory of change. The aim of the theories of change is not just to describe the contextual admissions policy, but to identify the outcomes and impacts the policy aims to achieve, and the mechanisms by which the provider’s activities will contribute to this aim.
Once developed, the theories of change will be published and accessible for the wider sector to use. TASO will also publish a report outlining the process of creating the theories of change and recommendations for the sector, with providers contributing their reflections.
Expectations for participating providers
- TASO will select up to six providers with which we will collaborate to develop theories of change of their contextual admissions policy.
- Theory of change workshops will take place in September and October 2026.
- Successful providers will be expected to commit time and resourcing to the theory of change development, including through meetings, workshops and reviewing of outputs. Table 1 details how project activities and responsibilities will be split across the organisations involved in the project
Table 1. Project responsibilities
| Provider | TASO | |
|---|---|---|
| Contract management | Lead | |
| Project management | Lead | |
| Conduct theory of change workshops | Participate | Lead |
| Review theory of change | Review | Review |
| Produce summary report | Contribute | Lead |
Funding
Up to £2,000 will be provided to each selected provider to cover room hire and staff time to participate in the workshops.
Project timeline
Table 2. Project milestones and key dates
| Milestone | Date |
| Call for applications opens | 15 June 2026 |
| Open call information webinar | 24 June 2026, 11:00–12:00 |
| Deadline for applications | 13 July 2026, 13:00 |
| Application follow-up calls | Week commencing 20 July 2026 |
| Providers appointed | Week commencing 27 July 2026 |
| Project kick off | August 2026 |
| One-day, in-person theory of change development meetings and workshops | September–October 2026 |
| Half-day, online follow-up workshops | November–December 2026 |
| Final theory of change outputs | February–March 2027 |
Eligibility
- The applicant must be a registered English higher education provider in the approved (fee cap) category.
- The applicant must commit time and resourcing to the ToC development, including through meetings, workshops and reviewing of outputs.
Applications
To apply please fill out the online application form. The details required to complete the online application form are outlined in Appendix 1.
Assessment of applications
Your application will be assessed by the TASO Research and Evaluation team.
While the strength of applications will be assessed on the following criteria (please note the weighting of each section) we will also try to select providers so they represent the diversity of contextual admissions policies in the sector.
- Contextualised admissions policy (30%)
- Rationale for use of contextualisation in admissions
- Clarity about the offer of contextual admissions: what are you doing and for whom?
- Additional support for contextualised students after admissions
- Relevance/impact of the project (30%)
- The provider’s plan to use and implement the ToC beyond the lifecycle of this project.
- Consideration of data systems required to deliver and evaluate contextualisation
- Team (40%)
- The relevant experience of the project team.
- The team’s commitment to evidence-informed practice.
- The team’s approach to transparency and accountability.
Additional guidance
- TASO reserves the right, acting reasonably, to:
- discontinue the award procedure in the absence of appropriate applications
- change the timetable for the procurement of the Contract, and in such circumstances TASO will notify all applicants of any change by the fastest means possible
- terminate discussions with organisations which apply
- discontinue the procedure leading to the award of the Contract
- not to award any Contract at all as a result of this process
- Under no circumstances shall TASO incur any liability in respect of any of these actions.
- No publicity regarding the project will be permitted until TASO has given express written consent to the relevant communication. No statements may be made to any part of the media regarding the nature of this application, its contents or any proposals relating to it without the prior written consent of TASO.
- TASO will not reimburse any costs incurred by organisations in connection with preparation of their applications.
- If you are unsure of the meaning of a question or anything in this call for applications then it is your responsibility to ask TASO to clarify in writing via email (research@taso.org.uk).
- TASO will aim to answer clarification questions within five (5) working days, but does not undertake to do so. TASO may also decline to answer a question if it deems the question to be inappropriate. If TASO is unable to answer a question, this will be communicated.
Appendix 1: Information required to complete the online application form
Below is a list of the information you will need to provide in the online application form, to help you gather the necessary information before filling it out.
Please read the data privacy notice, as you will be asked to confirm this during the application.
Contextualised admissions
- Which forms of contextualised admissions does your provider employ?
- Contextual offers (1 grade below standard offer), Contextual offers (2 grades or more below standard offer), Guaranteed offers, Guaranteed interviews, Near-miss acceptances at confirmation, Additional consideration, Foundation year offers
Scope
- Which best describes your institution’s contextualised admissions policy?
- Institution-wide, Institution-wide with departmental/course specific adaptations, Implemented in some departments/courses but not institution-wide, Applicable to postgraduate courses
Eligibility criteria
- What are the eligibility criteria for contextual admissions at your institution?
Intake
- What is the approximate size of your institution’s undergraduate intake each academic year?
Contextualised admissions cohort
- What is the percentage of your institution’s intake who were made a contextual admissions offer?
- (0%, 1%-5%, 6%-10%, 11%-20%, 21%30%, 31%-40%, 41%-50%, 51%+, Don’t know)
Ongoing support
- What forms of additional support are offered to contextually admitted students? Please indicate if these are universal or targeted. (Max: 1200 characters)
Rationale
- Please outline your institutional rationale for applying contextualisation in admissions (Max: 1200 characters)
Theory of change
- Do you have a theory of change for your contextualised admissions policy?
Evaluation stage
- Do you currently evaluate, or have plans to evaluate, your contextualised admissions policy?
Evaluation details for those currently or have plans to evaluate their policy
- Evaluation sharing
- If selected, would you be willing to share details of existing evaluations with TASO (including findings, if ready)?
- Type of evaluation
- What type(s) of evaluation are you conducting or planning to conduct?
- Descriptive analysis/monitoring, Impact evaluation producing type 2 evidence (empirical), Impact evaluation producing type 3 evidence (causal), Implementation and process evaluation, Theory-based evaluation, Other
- What type(s) of evaluation are you conducting or planning to conduct?
- Outcomes
- What outcomes have you tested/are you planning to test?
- Pre-enrolment stage (offer, acceptance, confirmation), Enrolment, Continuation, Completion, Module attainment, Degree attainment, Progression from higher education, Sense of belonging and mattering, Confidence in academic ability (self-efficacy), Other
- What outcomes have you tested/are you planning to test?
Involvement
- Workshop commitment
- Can you commit to providing time for relevant staff to participate in a one-day workshop (preferably in person) during September 2026 and October 2026 ? The workshop would take place at your premises.
- Team
- Please provide details of the team who will be involved in delivering / supporting the development of the TOC:
- 1. Details of key staff who will be involved with the ToC development.
- 2. The team’s involvement in developing or supporting the contextual admissions policy.
- 3. Relevant knowledge and skills of contextual admissions and creating ToCs.
- 4. Capacity to meet key responsibilities in Table 1 of the call. (Max: 3000 characters)
- Please provide details of the team who will be involved in delivering / supporting the development of the TOC:
- Relevance
- What is your motivation for taking part in this project? (Max: 2000 characters)
- Please describe how your provider would use the outputs of this project beyond its lifecycle. In your response, please also outline the data systems currently in place to support the delivery and evaluation of your contextualised admissions policy, and identify any known gaps.
- What is your motivation for taking part in this project? (Max: 2000 characters)
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Application eligibility and selection process
How complete does the contextualised admission policy need to be to apply?
It is not necessary to have a finished contextualised admissions policy in place to submit an application. Providing a clear rationale and an account of your current approach will be sufficient for our review process.
Beyond meeting the requirements of the project, are you looking to recruit providers of different sizes and types? Are there any other selection criteria?
We have no set criteria for provider types, sizes or regions and are looking to work with a range of providers, if the quantity and quality of applications allows us to.
Are you looking for a broad spectrum of higher education providers for this?
Yes – we will be looking to represent a spread of providers, including lower and higher tariff institutions, as well as specialist institutions to address as many gaps in the research or policy questions as possible. We are also mindful of other contextual regional differences such as urban/rural contexts and would take into account any such unique contextual factors when considering the diversity of applications we choose.
A lot of existing evidence uses POLAR as a measure. Will you be looking for proposals that can go beyond this and use individual level measures of disadvantage?
Yes. We would be interested to hear about any individual level measures as they would be an important part of your theory of change in terms of what you are trying to address. Many individual level measures allow for more specificity.
Are you looking for submissions just from higher education providers or could collaborative partnerships submit too, where contextual offers are a key part?
Yes, this is absolutely acceptable as long as the higher education provider is the lead partner. Please specify the rationale and the roles of everyone involved.
Will you be evaluating the use of conditional contextual offers such as where students only get the reduced offer if they put the higher education provider as their firm choice?
Yes. We would be keen to learn more about conditional contextual offers.
Are you more interested in whole-institution approaches to contextual admissions or contextual admissions for specific programmes?
We are interested in both. Please give details about how your policy might work in either context. We are also interested in cases where there are specific ways of applying a policy to a specific context, such as on a particular course or targeted programme.
In terms of evaluation, are you interested in proposals measuring/reporting on longitudinal outcomes for students in terms of degree attainment and beyond?
Yes, we are open to measuring longitudinal outcomes and to think through what those outcomes might be. We are also interested in post-enrolment support.
Are reduced contextual offers for students from widening participation-programmes considered as part of this?
Yes. We will be considering contextual offers for students from widening-participation programmes, including care experienced students.
What about online programmes? Some of our programmes are delivered in person but we also have an online campus too.
Yes. Please state the nature of the delivery and the rationale for this.
If we are already working with TASO or involved in another project, will this affect our chances of being selected for this opportunity?
No, working with TASO on other projects will not affect your chances of being selected.
Application strength
Do you have any tips on what would constitute a successful application? Key things you are looking out for?
Please see the criteria. Look at the weighting of each section of the application. Provide a very clear rationale for your intervention, a strong team and a willingness to collaborate and share learning and information. Though you may not need academic involvement on your team to take part, you will need members who understand the admissions process and how that affects the student experiences and members who have some understanding of evaluation processes.
Are there minimum sample size expectations?
There are no minimum or maximum sample size requirements. Please state how well your data systems work, and if there are possibilities for identifying comparator groups. Samples of under 20 might make it difficult to evaluate rigorously. However, we are keen to review the intervention in context.
Time and resourcing requirements
In practice, how much involvement do you anticipate will be required from the providers, in addition to information provision and having those meetings and workshops?
We anticipate providers to be involved in:
- some set-up meetings at the start of the project
- a main theory of change workshop held in-person at the institution with a larger group of relevant stakeholders
- contributing to reviewing the project outputs (theories of change and report contributions) through follow-up meetings and emails.
What is the time expectation during August, it is obviously a very busy time for admissions?
The August requirements are mostly administrative in organising the initial meetings for September and identifying the key staff members who would need to attend those meetings. If you are unfamiliar with a theory of change or your admissions process, this may be a good time to reflect, refresh and consider what you might want to bring to the theory of change workshop.
How many people would you be looking for to be part of the project team? Is there an expectation around this or is it provider dependent?
We have no set requirements for the project team as we appreciate that staff availability will vary between providers. The main responsibilities of the project team will be to:
- communicate with TASO and Anna Zimdars
- convene colleagues and stakeholders for the theory of change workshop
- review project outputs (theories of change and report contributions).
They might also bring in colleagues to support specific project stages. Theory of change workshops tend to involve between four and 10 participants though we would accept rationales for different numbers if clearly stated. We expect a range of participants from those designing the policies, through to those conducting research or evaluation.
Theory of change
For colleagues not yet expert with using a theory of change approach, can you explain what the benefits are?
Theories of change have a wide range of benefits:
- Testing the underlying logic and assumptions you are making in your contextual admissions policy, to ensure it can realistically achieve what you want it to
- Ensuring there is agreement within your provider of what your contextual admissions policy is aiming to achieve and how you will get there, by collectively thinking through your approach
- A structured way of representing the aims, activities, and impact of your contextual admissions policy in a simple framework
- A communication tool to use internally and externally when explaining your contextual admissions policy
- Informing the basis of an evaluation plan, including feasible outcome measures
How much theory of change knowledge would the team working on this need to have?
We do not expect the team to be experts in theory of change, as TASO will support this. It may be helpful for the team to know about the concept of a theory of change and have looked at some theories of change in the past, and perhaps tried to develop one for an intervention themselves at some point. However the theory of change workshop will be led by experts who will guide attendees through the concepts.
If we have an existing theory of change for contextual admissions, some early evaluation outputs and/or evaluation plans, is it still worth applying to take part?
Yes, please do. We can learn from you and help you refine your evaluation outputs and plans. It is up to you to decide if that is what you would need at that stage of your process but we would be interested in working with you.
Working with students and lived experience
Would it be encouraged to work with students, as well as staff?
Absolutely, if providers would like to work with students or other stakeholders internally in preparation for the theory of change development we very much encourage this approach. Equally, providers may wish to include student representatives in the main theory of change workshop, which we are open to provided the students are supported and equipped to do so. Whilst we encourage involving student voice, it is not a requirement for this project.
Are you interested in working with partners whose members of the project team may themselves have received a contextualised offer?
Though not part of the eligibility criteria, we are interested in your personal experiences of contextual admissions and the ways in which they affect how you feel they should be measured.
Funding and partners
Is there any funding associated with taking part in this project (similarly to other TASO research projects)?
Up to £2,000 per provider to cover staff time for workshops to develop the theory of change, and to cover room hire.
Do you have any input from UCAS to the project?
No, although we have a good relationship with UCAS and they have done some work on contextual admissions which we will consider as part of our desk research. However, they are not directly involved in this project. We appreciate that there are practical issues with processing contextual offers through UCAS. This will be addressed as part of our broader work on designing guidance and practical support on data collection and management of contextual admissions by convening a special interest group during the project.
Further support
Would TASO be able to provide support beyond the initial focus on admissions outcomes to help institutions develop a longer-term evaluation plan for contextualised admissions? For example, examining continuation, attainment, completion, graduate outcomes and broader measures of student success within higher education?
We are interested in working within a broader framework and considering student success as going beyond higher education. We are hoping that the theory of change workshops will provide a dual space to provide support and to consider the nuances that underpin contextual admissions such as exploring how to measure success.
Will TASO be providing any guidance during this project about how to futureproof the Enhanced Theory of Change development and support better implementation?
We are keen to work with you through the theory of change workshops to understand the different contextual factors that would affect implementation and to hear what support would be necessary. As TASO, we are well positioned through our networks and policy influence to ensure that senior leaders see the utility and importance of contextual admissions. The workshops will also give you the opportunity to have buy-in and participation from staff across the institution.